June!

Tax season is O-V-E-R!
Hear that? It's the angelic choir singing the Hallelujah chorus for all accountants, everywhere.
I pretty much stopped cooking through it all. There's something about working late, six days a week, that just removes all motivation, energy, and time to go to the grocery store.
This is the perfect spring/summer recipe. My wonderful sister found it, and I tweaked it tonight.

Miss Daisy's Tomato-Artichoke Salad

4 large tomatoes cut into wedges or 1 pint cherry tomatoes, cut into halves
3 c canned, drained artichoke hearts, sliced
1 small red onion, thinly sliced *(or use half)

Dressing:
2 T Balsamic vinegar
1 T Dijon mustard
1/4 c extra virgin olive oil
Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions: In a bowl, whisk together vinegar, mustard, salt and pepper. Gradually, whisk in the oil. Toss with vegetables and transfer to a serving platter.

Yield: 4-5 servings

Soup!

This past weekend, while I was dreaming of a weekend getaway, the weather said no, and promptly dropped 3-4 inches snow, followed by about an inch of ice all over middle Tennessee. Charming. Needless to say, my getaway didn't happen.
Instead, I spent a great weekend curled up in my apartment with friends, cooking and eating and drinking and playing in the snow. Not a shabby trade.
I decided to make this soup. I've been meaning to try it for a long time, and for whatever reason just haven't gotten around to it, which makes me want to kick myself since this soup was INCREDIBLY delicious and, oh yeah, totally easy.

Sherried Tomato Soup

6 Tbsp butter
1 onion, diced
1 can (46 oz.) tomato juice
2 cans (14 oz. cans) diced tomatoes
3 chicken boullion cubes
4 Tbsp sugar (to taste really)
1 c. cooking herry
1½ cups heavy cream
Chopped fresh basil
Salt and pepper to taste

Saute onions in the butter in a large soup pot til translucent. Add the cans of diced tomatoes (undrained), then the tomato juice. Add everything but the sherry and cream and stir well, bringing to a light boil. Turn off the heat and add the sherry, cream, and basil.
So, I didn't have any fresh basil since ghetto Kroger was out somehow (apparently snow makes people buy basil?!), but luckily Trader Joe's sells fresh frozen chopped herb cube things (not the official name), so I threw a few cubes in for some very tasty results. Also, the recipe calls for fresh parsely. Once upon a time, I made this recipe, which called for lots of fresh parsley. Turns out, I hate fresh parsley. I'll have to tackle that dish again one of these days, but it means I don't touch the stuff. Feel free to throw some in though.
We served this with grilled cheese sandwiches and were very, very, happy girls.

Lazy Tomato Sauce

Lazy doesn't mean bad. Also, I'm realizing how much my definition of lazy has changed. A couple of years or so ago, lazy tomato sauce would have been me opening a jar of Bertolli. Fancy tomato sauce would have been me dumping a few spices into that jar. Classy.
This sauce is definitely going into frequent rotation though. It is so simple and sweet, and extremely easy. I could see myself eating it on our balcony in the summer. Mmm... summer.
The hardest part was letting it simmer for 45 minutes. I was hungry.

Note: The quality of the tomatoes you use makes all the difference. This is not the time to get the cheap brand. Also, make sure that they don't contain basil, which was much more prevalent than I would have thought.

Lazy Tomato Sauce

1 28 oz can of whole, peeled tomatoes
5 Tbsp unsalted butter
1 onion, peeled and cut in half
Salt to taste (I barely added a pinch, and only at the very end)

Melt the butter in a large saucepan, then throw in the contents of the can and the onion halves. Bring to a boil over medium, then reduce and let it simmer for about 45 minutes. Every so often I would stir it around and smash the tomatoes. Which was fun. When the time is up, remove the onion and discard. Serve with your favorite pasta and salad. Oh, and wine and garlic bread too, of course.

Man Dip

It's been a rainy day. A curl up on the couch day. An eat copious amounts of fatty foods day. Plus Target. Always Target.
La requested Man Dip the other day, so I'm finally obliging. I'm so nice!

Man Dip

1 can original Rotel, drained
1 box cream cheese
1 lb breakfast sausage, cooked and crumbled

Mix together. I put it in my little crockpot for an hour or so for the flavors to get acquainted, but I'm sure it'd work well on the stove top for a little while too. Serve with chips (I love Fritos!).

Trader Joe's

I wish I could express exactly how I feel about Trader Joe's, but words don't even begin to do it justice. The first time I walked through the store I had to keep reminding myself to stop grinning like an idiot. It's my happy place. If I have a bad day, take me there and let me wander. I'll be better in no time, I promise.
I thought I might start highlighting some of my favorite products occasionally, the foods that always wind up taking all of my very limited freezer space.

Mandarin Orange Chicken. Oooooh my goodness. Better than any orange chicken I've ever had, hands down. Perfect sauce. Perfect crunch. Perfect everything. We always follow the oven directions, because there's no way the microwave could do this justice. We also always serve it in a bowl mixed with corn, because they go perfectly together. Plus, corn counts as a vegetable. Even when smothered in cream and butter.
And we eat it with pink chopsticks. Because we can.

Cheesy Spaghetti Bake

When La and I became roommates, and discovered our shared love of food, I soon came to learn that she had something that I didn't: loads of family recipe comfort foods. I'm in the process of tasting as many of these as possible, since I seem to have missed a certain part of my southern heritage in this department. Like the fact that, until a few months ago, I had never had the classic green bean casserole. GASP.
This is one of our absolute favorites. So much so that we had it for Roommate Christmas this year (along with St. Germaine and vodka gimlets. Heavenly). It's the perfect comfort food, and we think that it might even be better the next day. Always a good thing.
Since I finally got a copy of the recipe, I thought it best to post it here, so I'll never have to worry about accidentally deleting the email.

Cheesy Spaghetti Bake
Bake at 350
30 minutes

INGREDIENTS
½ lb. lean ground beef
15 oz. jar of spaghetti sauce
8 oz. spaghetti broken into thirds

Cheese Sauce
1 C milk
2 T flour
2 T butter
1 C grated cheddar
1/3 C grated Parmesan (Or Italian Blend, as we normally do)
Pinch of salt & pepper

- Over medium heat melt butter, stir in flour until smooth paste 
-Slowly add milk while stirring out all lumps
-Continue to cook over medium heat until boiling
-Turn on low heat for 1 minute until sauce coats spoon
-Stir in ½ cup cheddar and all Parmesan
-Stir until melted

-Brown meat, drain, return to pan
-Add spaghetti sauce to meat, cover, let simmer
-Cook spaghetti, drain, return to pan and add meat/sauce mixture
-Stir until mixed well
-Pour half of the spaghetti/meat/sauce mixture into clear 9x13 dish
-Cover with white cheese sauce
-Pour the remaining spaghetti/meat/sauce mixture into dish and cover with remaining grated cheddar
-Bake uncovered for 30 minutes or until bubbly

Serve with lots of garlic bread and red wine. 

Creamy Cauliflower Goodness

In honor of the FRIGID temperatures in TN this week, I decided to make a big pot of soup. Tres domestique, non? Plus, this way I could give my new knives that Santa brought me a test run. (Note to self: these knives are inifinitely sharper than previous sets. Meaning that merely brushing the side of a finger against the edge can/will result in blood loss. Lesson learned).

One of my goals for this new year is to make a new dish at least once a month. Not just any dish, but something I never have come close to making in the past. Cauliflower soup certainly falls into that category.

Here's the recipe, from my beloved Pioneer Woman, who I got to meet last month. Yeah, I'm kind of a big deal.
I don't feel like typing the whole process out, since I should be working at the moment, but for the most part I stuck to the recipe. I wound up using one rather large head of cauliflower and it was perfectly chunky (sounds extremely unappetizing to phrase it that way). I used a little more salt, a little less chicken broth, and threw some freshly ground nutmeg in there for good measure. I think I have unresolved issues with authority that make me incapable of sticking to a recipe completely. Oh well. I can make good soup!